STA’s second-half surge sinks Dover

Thursday

May 2, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By Mike Whaleymwhaley@fosters.com

DOVER — Different day, similar result.

The St. Thomas Aquinas High School girls lacrosse team scored the first nine goals of the second half to turn a tight game into a convincing 21-9 Division II win over Garrison City rival Dover on Wednesday. The Saints beat Dover on the Green Wave’s home field last month, 18-9.

Abby Merrigan led the Saints (3-5) with six goals, including four in the first half. Reagan Williams added four, Natasha Nary scored three and Kaylee Murray and Gabbi Dodier had two each. Nicole Arsenault, Becca King, Hannah MacVane and Ashley Coneys had one each.

For Dover, which was held scoreless for the first 24:59 of the second half, Shayna Murphy had five goals and Meg Wilson added three. Allyson Redden scored the lone second-half Green Wave goal as time expired.

“We definitely tried more possession and running it down the middle,” said Merrigan of her team’s success in the second half. “We worked our game better, setting ourselves up for future games.

STA, which beat Bow in overtime Monday, 25-22, jumped out to a 7-1 lead, led by three goals from Williams and two more from Merrigan just a shade over five minutes into the game.

The Saints changed their substitution pattern, playing players with players who hadn’t played with each other and some were out of position, and that took them out of synch.

“When you do that in a lacrosse game you lose your flow,” said St. Thomas coach Briand Wade. “Dover, to their credit, stayed right in the game. But that did hurt us in the first half.”

Dover rallied. Down 8-2, the Green Wave outscored STA 6-4 over the final 17:08, including the final three goals of the half, two by Wilson and one my Murphy to trail 12-8 at the break.

“We knew we couldn’t come in and be like we got this, we beat them last time,” said STA’s Natasha Nary. “We had to settle down and play the game we knew how to play. We needed to score as many goals as possible and do it strategically.”

Merrigan scored 1:51 into the second half, sparking a 9-0 run that put the game out of reach.

Williams fed MacVane to make it 14-8, followed by scores from Williams and Merrigan (from Ashlie O’Brien) and STA was on its way.

“The second half they realized they can play better than they did in the first half,” coach Wade added.

As for defense, Merrigan said, “We definitely made some switches with certain people committed to playing low defense and others going to (midfield). We made sure the defense was rock hard and unstoppable.”

“We’ve been playing catch up all season,” said Dover coach Amanda Spadafora. “Apparently that’s the game they want to play. I don’t how else to tell them they need to answer back and make every ball theirs. It needs to click for them and that’s not happening.”

Dover made it run late in the first half, but could not carry it over.

“We could have made it a totally different game in the second half,” Spadafora added. “We just didn’t execute when we needed to. I don’t know why. ... We need to play together as a team. I felt it was very much individualized today and we need to stick together.”